


How You Played It

by emef



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Classical Music AU, M/M, Pining, baroque performance practice, fragment, moody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:13:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25411426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emef/pseuds/emef
Summary: John plays baroque violin and tries to have feelingsRodney is shouty and plays harpsichordjust fragments, no plot
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	How You Played It

**Author's Note:**

> Ye Olde bring your fandom to work fic, from back when I had yet ever write down an entire actual plot. (Seriously, this is over ten years old.)
> 
> Unbetaed.

The Brandenburg overwhelms him. He figures it's the stress of the long days at the institute, and he thinks : he must be feeling pretty raw. This is music he's known since adolescence. When he was still talking to his parents. When he thought they cared. When he loved this music in a totally innocent way, when he thought you just played it ; when he thought it didn't matter how you played it. When he didn't know anyone could mock him for what he liked or didn't like.

[…] like he's trying to convince himself that classical and baroque music doesn't matter. Like in the real world, how well (or how badly) he plays the violin doesn't matter.

*

John walks out of the administrative office to hear one of the harpsichordists - Rodney - complaining loudly.

"This is total crap! Like we have to stay here all day in case someone requests an accompanist, but here we are, the harpsichord team, with our own message board with little enveloped for rehearsal requests, and the envelopes are _always empty_ , and I'm wasting my precious time, and does anybody care?"

Another harpsichordist answers : "Seriously, at this point, I'd be happy just to get a note that says "hi Sara!" with a smiley face."

Rodney humpfs "at least that would show that people remember that we exist."

*

John watches people play - in masterclass, in recitals, in orchestra, in chamber music - and he notices their body language, and posture, and movement choices even more than their sound. Some people move around so much that it's distracting ; others look stiff, like they're holding something back. Some are trying for "relaxed" but just give off "tired" ; others try to give "confident" and just end up with "obviously compensating for something".

John thinks… if he saw even one person who moved _just right_ , he'd never be able to look away.

When Rodney walks, or talks, or sits, or does _anything_ but play music, he is stiff, and slightly hunched, and always looks just about to defend himself against something. And he sticks his chin out like it is both his interface and shield for interaction with the world, and it is protecting the rest of his self.

When he plays music, Rodney's body turns into a conduit, connecting the universe to his instrument, and his instrument to the universe. His body doesn't speak the language of every day interaction, but it speaks the language of Bach, and moves in a different way from the ideal, perfect way John has always imagined, but John finds that he cannot look away, riveted by this person who doesn't bring his own issues and opinions into his playing ; who doesn't seem to have an _opinion_ of the music ; he just seems to have love. If anything, Rodney plays music like he clings to it, like he wishes he never had to go back to the cruel, logic-deprived world of human interaction.

*

John longs to be the focus of Rodney's attention.

Rodney bobs his head when he plays, like he's having a conversation with the music, and agreeing with everything it says. He taps his feet a little. He jerks his elbow. And sometimes, just sometimes, he moves his spine, all the way down to his pelvis, like he's creating the notes with a visceral, sexual movement. It doesn't end up sounding sensual, exactly it just ends up sounding like Rodney's uncoiled the rawest source of power he has. John wants to have a conversation with that raw source of power. He wants to know what's made him that way ; he wants to know what he can do to make Rodney's spine move that way when he isn't sitting at a keyboard.

*

If someone asked John point blank, he would tell them that he isn't particularly attached to 17th and 18th century music, or 17th and 18th century performance practice.

If pushed further, he'd admit that he's ended up here, specializing in this kind of performance, because (1) it is the only kind of performance no one ever pressured him into doing (2) he is really, really good at it and maybe because 3) his father thinks it's stupid.

His father thinks authentic baroque performance is stupid because - John presumes - he feels threatened by the fact that is negates his entire musical upbringing. He is attached to the kind of hierarchized, patriarchal music practice he was taught ; music lording over its public in a very Tortured Artist vs. Clueless, Manipulated Listener kind of way.

John privately thinks that his father never loved music ; that what he loved was playing music better than the next guy.

Baroque violin is the only kind of music no one ever _told_ John to play, and it comes naturally. Playing a so-called "authentic" performance of Vivaldi, he feels like a fish in water, like some sort of biological imperative is telling him what to do.


End file.
